Archive

Quotes

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

—Frederick Douglass, 1855

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908